Placer County has restarted efforts to find a new use for the firehouse vacated by the North Tahoe Fire Protection District in 2011.

The firehouse, along with the adjoining Tahoe Community Center structure, is on the lakeside of Lake Blvd. near Commons Beach. Placer County initially started a public process for the site in 2011, but elected to wait for other planning efforts that would affect the potential uses for the structure.

“Our goal is to find the best use for the site that will facilitate improvement to Tahoe City’s community, environment and economy,” said Jennifer Merchant, Placer County’s deputy county executive officer for Lake Tahoe. “We’re really excited to work with stakeholders and the community to find the right fit.”

Placer County began working with stakeholders in April to solicit opinions and expert input on what could be the best use of the site, whether that means re-using the existing buildings, taking them down for a park or plaza, or some combination thereof.

The community is being asked to identify re-use options that are innovative, feasible from a cost and time perspective, and include a strategy for long-term financial self-sustainability.

The community will have a number of opportunities to participate in the planning process, learn more about potential options and voice their input:

Community Workshops:

June 5, 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the old firehouse.

July 1, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the old firehouse.

North Tahoe Regional Advisory Council:

July 13, 6 p.m. at the Tahoe City Public Utility District building conference room.

Staff will present the workshop findings to the Placer County Board of Supervisors at their Tahoe board meeting scheduled for July 25 (Tahoe location TBD).

To find out more, to offer input on potential uses of the site, or to get involved, contact Suzy Vose at svose@placer.ca.gov or 530-886-4962.

In his continued efforts to fight against the illegal fire tax, Senator Ted Gaines (R-El Dorado) announced on March 2nd Senate Bill 9, a measure to repeal the tax.

‘This fire tax is illegal and unfair – plain and simple,” said Senator Gaines. “Many rural property owners already pay local fire agencies for protection so it is clearly double-taxation and it is being dumped on the backs of rural Californians when parts of my district still have a more than 10-percent unemployment rate and families are struggling to make ends meet.”

Senate Bill 9 would reverse the annual $152.33 “fee” for fire prevention services charged to rural property owners located in “State Responsibility Areas” (SRA) designated by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), even though their property taxes already contribute to the service contracts that counties have with CAL FIRE.

The fire tax is imposed on more than 800,000 properties in the state that are within the boundaries of SRA. According to census and CAL FIRE data, Senator Gaines’ largely rural district includes roughly 20-percent or approximately 160,000 of the properties whose owners are subject to the fee.

Senator Gaines contends that the fire tax attempts to sidestep Proposition 26, the initiative passed in 2010 that prevents the Legislature from disguising taxes as “fees” and circumventing constitutional requirements for passing higher taxes. He has been a leading critic of the tax and has introduced numerous pieces of legislation in previous years that attempted to provide relief for rural Californians. Senator Gaines also strongly supports the lawsuit filed against the state by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association challenging the fee on constitutional grounds.

“I have fought this illegal tax at every turn and I encourage everyone who is stuck paying this phony fee to get in the arena and fight it too,” said Senator Gaines. “The answer to fire protection in California is not illegal taxes, but budgets that invest in core government services that protect every citizen in the state – rural, urban and suburban.”

A handful of California families will find it hard to celebrate the holidays this year because they lost their fathers and brothers to senseless violence.

On October 19, Sheriff’s Deputy Jack Hopkins of Modoc County responded to a disturbance call and was shot and killed in the line of duty. He was only 31. On October 6, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Owen was shot dead responding to a burglary. The two deaths are a somber reminder that for our peace officers, their lives are on the line every time they are on patrol.

Each of these losses, hundreds of miles apart in our vast state, was a tragedy. But the same month, something far more sinister played out here, showing that America and our law enforcement have entered a new, more dangerous and shameful era that threatens the foundation of the lawful and civil society we enjoy.

Two Palm Springs police officers, Lesley Zerebny, 27, and Jose “Gil” Vega, 63, we murdered in a planned attack committed by John Hernandez Felix. These deaths did not occur during the commission of another crime, they were the crime. Felix set a trap for the officers and ambushed them, shooting them down in cold blood. It was not a one-off event.

In late November, a San Antonio policeman was ambush murdered as well. And, devastatingly, this summer’s hateful and violent anti-police protests culminated in the sickening assassination of five innocent police officers in Dallas. I only wish that the list was complete, but it’s not.

Driven by the media’s hysterical coverage of any shooting death that fits their political narrative of minority oppression at the hands of police, we’re trending into and upside down world where the protectors are viewed as predators. That’s wrong. It’s the open, politically inspired murder of police that is the real “hate crime” epidemic.

In this overheated environment, it’s little surprise that year-over-year law enforcement firearm-related deaths are up 67-percent in 2016.

This growing hostility towards the police is terrible for the men and women who serve to keep us safe, and it’s changing the way they police, with distressing effect.

The “Ferguson Effect” describes a retreat from effective, proactive policing that has been one driver of a multi-decade crime decline that is in danger of reversing. It’s a term rooted in the Ferguson Police shooting of strong-arm robber Michael Brown, where the infamous and false “hands up, don’t shoot!” became the big lie slogan of rioters, activists, and a complicit, left-wing media and political cabal.

Police around the country, fearful of becoming a media story, or tired of the jeering, snarling mobs that now surround and confront them in the course of their duties, have predictably began interacting more cautiously and less frequently with the public, to dire effect.

In Chicago, for example, police stops were down 90-percent in the first part of 2016, compared to 2015. Shootings in that city have skyrocketed. Heather MacDonald, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, blames the crime spike in Chicago (and other cities – it’s not a Chicago-specific phenomenon) on the abandonment of “broken windows” policing that sees police actively intervening in small, low-level public enforcement crimes. This retreat leads to disorder and emboldens criminals to commit more serious crimes. It’s a troubling shift in nationwide policing.

To make it worse, California is undertaking an unprecedented de-incarceration effort that is putting tens of thousands of criminals back out on the streets before their sentences are complete and making it more difficult to put offenders behind bars.

“Realignment,” 2014’s Proposition 47, and this year’s Proposition 57, all send a strong message to California criminals that the state is not interested in punishing them for their crimes.

It seems simple to understand that if you introduce more criminals into society, the result will be more crime. True to form, California violent crime jumped 11-percent in the first six months of 2015, compared to 2014. Expect crime to spike even higher.

This is the worst possible time for the police to step back because they fear attacks, shaming or other fallout from simply doing their jobs to preserve law and order and keep us safe. The environment that has inflamed and emboldened sick criminals to murder public safety officers must change. It’s a dangerous job where officers make life-and-death decision in a fraction of a second, and they deserve wide latitude from the public and our deepest thanks.

Are there abuses of police power and individual officers who use bad judgment? Of course. And it’s incumbent on us to hold those bad actors accountable. But it’s foolish to attribute sins of the individuals to the whole profession.

FBI Director James Comey said in October that the “narrative that policing is biased and unfair…threatens the future of policing.” Director Comey should not have stopped there. A media-fueled degradation of respect for law enforcement threatens much more than the future of policing, it threatens the safe, civil society that we take too much for granted.

Construction in Roseville Features Enhanced Security, Safety

Today, the Sacramento Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) hosted an opening ceremony and ribbon cutting to officially debut the field office’s new headquarters facility in Roseville, a city in eastern Placer County, Calif. The new building features enhanced security, upgraded technology, and ample workspace to accommodate FBI personnel and its law enforcement partners.

Special Agent in Charge Monica M. Miller welcomed FBI Director James B. Comey and more than 300 attendees representing law enforcement, elected officials, and community partners to the new field office headquarters.

“Our new Sacramento Field Office headquarters facility supports enhanced collaboration within our organization and with our law enforcement partners,” said Special Agent in Charge Monica M. Miller. “We are now well prepared for inevitable growth and to host community education programs such as our FBI Teen Academy and FBI Citizens Academy.”

In addition to addresses by Director Comey and Special Agent in Charge Miller, the ceremony featured the Placer County Sheriff’s Department honor guard; Sacramento Metropolitan Fire Department Pipe and Drum Corps; Carrie Hennessey, a Grammy-nominated vocalist who sang the national anthem; Norman Dong, Public Buildings Commissioner, General Services Administration; William L. Cunningham-Corso, President, Cunningham Development Company, Inc.; Donald Wetzel, Senior Development Manager, Walsh Group; Carol Garcia, Mayor, City of Roseville; and Congressman Tom McClintock, U.S. Congressional Representative, Fourth District of California.

“GSA and FBI were dedicated to the effective delivery of this project and through strong inter-agency partnerships, the project is a great success,” said Norman Dong, Public Buildings Service Commissioner. “This building was designed with state of the art secure protection features and energy efficient specs that will lead the way for future FBI buildings.”

The FBI’s Sacramento Field Office has served the 34-county Eastern District of California since 1967, when the federal judicial districts were reorganized. Currently, the Sacramento Field Office has seven resident agency locations to serve the region—Redding, Chico, Fairfield, Tahoe, Stockton, Fresno, and Bakersfield—in addition to its central headquarters.

New public telephone numbers and the address for Sacramento Field Office headquarters have been posted on its website, www.fbi.gov/sacramento. The public may also submit information via tips.fbi.gov and, for cyber-related crimes, www.ic3.gov.

With fire season upon us and winter months approaching, there is no better time to prepare for a disaster - events that often occur with little to no warning – by registering with the mass notification system at any one of the following three URL’s: Sacramento-Alert.org, Yolo-Alert.org or Placer-Alert.org.

Register now before a disaster hits, so public safety officials can call, text or email you in the event of a disaster.

Consider the state’s historic drought causing elevated wildfire danger, or winter storms and the many levees surrounding our urban core. Both events can occur rapidly, sometimes forcing evacuations, shelter in place orders and road closures. The regional mass notification system is a critical link for you to immediately learn of required actions.

Sign up for alerts at either Sacramento-Alert.org, Yolo-Alert.org or Placer-Alert.org - it’s easy and your information is protected. Officials will only text during an emergency or public safety event, or if public help is needed to find a missing child or adult.

The unique feature of the system is the ability to handle more than one contact method for residents including cell phones, alternate numbers, text, email and even landlines. You choose the best notification method or chose them all. You can also register multiple locations, such as your work address, your parent’s address or your children’s school, in order to get alerts about the places that mean the most to you.

In 2015, Placer County Fire responded to 7,636 calls for emergency service, including medical and fire calls, for 475 square miles of unincorporated areas of the county. This service is provided by CAL FIRE through an annual contract with the county. Each fiscal year, the county renews the contract, ensuring consistency and continuity of response to emergency calls.

Today, the county board of supervisors OK’d a $10.6 million contract for fiscal year 2016-17. The contract will provide fire and emergency service for about 52,000 residents, plus visitors who make calls for service while in the county.

The contract represents a 4.4 percent increase due to restoring two firefighters to Station 77 in the Sunset Area near Lincoln, Rocklin and Roseville and restoring a battalion chief in North Auburn-Ophir. Funding for the CAL FIRE contract comes from the County Fire Control Fund, Sunset West Fire, North Auburn-Ophir Fire and Dry Creek Fire.

In addition to CAL FIRE, there are 18 other independent fire districts in the county. Placer County Fire service is provided by 60 full-time firefighters operating out of eight stations staffed around the clock. Those stations are in Alta, Colfax, Bowman, North Auburn, Ophir, Lincoln, the Sunset Area and Dry Creek. CAL FIRE manages the City of Colfax Volunteer Fire Department and assists the city with its fire inspection and land development functions. These services are funded by the City of Colfax in a separate agreement with the county.

CAL FIRE Local 2881 represents the 6,500 firefighters of CAL FIRE. They answer more than 400,000 calls per year with professionalism and integrity. However, CAL FIRE firefighters are in crisis.

“Today (August 16th) I did the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do as a firefighter,” said CAL FIRE firefighter Steve Mueller. “While I look forward to protecting my neighbors and working hard with my colleagues, I didn’t enjoy talking publically about how our pay lags drastically behind other departments.”

California’s independent Human Resources Salary Report reveals that CAL FIRE firefighters make 30-90% less than firefighters from California’s top twenty-five fire departments. A fifteen-year veteran of CAL FIRE can make more money, and with less responsibilities, as an entry-level firefighter at a local department. Three months ago, CAL FIRE had a 50% no-show for the promotional Fire Captain test.

Entry-level firefighters make only minimum wage. In five years, due to compaction within the Department, they will make as much as mid-level firefighters. The compaction and overlapping of pay negatively impacts morale among firefighters and robs our men and women the incentive to promote.

“I love fighting fires and the camaraderie on the job but, it is important that our pay at least be competitive with other fire departments,” said Mueller.

Mueller mentioned that firefighters will be at the State Capitol at 11AM on Monday, August 22nd to protest the pay disparities.

The men and women of CAL FIRE will always answer the call and it is an honor to protect our neighbors. We hope to work cooperatively with the Administration to find a viable solution.